Substantial literature exists describing cognitive and visual impairments due to neural dysfunctions, neurodegenerative diseases, and mental disorders. Visual functions, such as shape and motion processing, are impaired by neural dysfunctions. However, many visual abnormalities are unlikely to be uncovered during routine neurological examination.
A method and system for quantitative assessment of functional impairment enables for detection of and indicates diagnosis of a variety of neurological diseases and disorders. A system for sensory-motor quantitative neurocognitive assessment provides continuous feedback adjusted stimulation and its standardized scoring algorithms may provide for diagnosis for early stages of cognitive changes and visual impairments associated with a variety of neurological diseases and disorders. Quantitative assessment may aid in the investigation of cognitive and visual functions at various levels, including, but not limited to, contrast sensitivity, motion detection, depth recognition, and object recognition.
Further, quantitative assessment may indicate diagnosis of neurological diseases and disorders, which include Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, autism, depression, schizophrenia, Asperger's Syndrome, Williams Syndrome, among others. Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease are the most common neurodegenerative diseases. Autism and depression are among the most common mental disorders.
Alzheimer's Disease is characterized pathologically by synaptic dysfunction and clinically by a decline in memory and cognition. Further, Alzheimer's Disease may be accompanied by attentional and perceptual deficits, including impaired visual motion and processing. Research studies suggest a perceptual basis of visuospatial disorientation in Alzheimer's Disease. Further, attentional dynamics in Alzheimer's Disease may limit the rate at which visual motion signals can be integrated into a coherent representation of self-movement. Alzheimer's Disease can begin with a wide variety of different symptoms and progresses through recognized clinical stages to include an increasing number of symptoms and worsening functional disability; research studies have demonstrated that all of these changes are accompanied by substantial impairments of perceptual-motor processing.
Currently, Alzheimer's Disease has no cure or preventive therapies, only symptomatic treatments. Diagnosis is usually be established with behavioral assessments and cognitive tests, often followed by one of more types of brain imaging. Researchers have known that Alzheimer's Disease is characterized by impairments in memory deficit and visual functions. Visual impairments in Alzheimer's Disease most commonly occur in motion, depth of field, color, and contrast.
Parkinson's Disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that impairs motor skills, speech, and thought processes, among other functions. Parkinson's Disease may be diagnosed based on clinical evaluations that reveal limb and truncal rigidity, tremor, and a slowing of physical movement and mental events. Non-motor symptoms may include autonomic dysfunction, cognitive abnormalities, sleep disorders, and sensory abnormalities. All of these symptoms are thought to the result of decreased stimulation of the cerebral areas caused by the insufficient formation and action of dopamine.
In addition, people with Parkinson's Disease usually develop some manifest eye movement control and visual processing problems, such as stare because they do not blink as frequently as before, and an inability to respond to visual motion cues that guide postural stabilization reflexes. The eyes may also have trouble fixating on objects and following objects as they move. Parkinson's Disease may impair visual processing and cause symptoms including reduced vision, poor color vision, and difficulties in appreciating the correct location or orientation of an object.
Autism is a brain developmental disorder that is characterized by widespread abnormalities of social interactions and communication. Individuals with autism also have difficulty with processing and responding to sensory information and use visual information inefficiently. Autistic people may have difficulty maintain visual attention and frequently rely on constant scanning of visual information in order to gain meaning, especially in the domain of social cues. Their symptoms reflects their inability to integrate their central and peripheral vision.
Eye movement disorders are common in Autism, but the most prominent visual symptom in autism is the aberrant local and global processing characterized by a superior perception of fine details. Another symptom in autism may be the impaired motion perception that may be also linked to abnormal perceptual integration.
Schizophrenia is a disabling brain disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception of expression or reality. Much work in the cognitive neuroscience of schizophrenia has focused on attention and memory; however, perceptual functions and visual processing are substantially disrupted in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia may generally associated with deficits in higher-order processing of visual information at a cognitive level. Deficits in contrast sensitivity for moving and static gratings, from discrimination in noise and dot motion discrimination have also been reported in patients with schizophrenia.
People with schizophrenia fail to use contextual information to disambiguate visual information. Poor form processing, particularly object recognition, grouping, perceptual closure, contour integration, face processing, and reading are typically present in people with schizophrenia.
Asperger's Syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder. People with Asperger's Syndrome may show significant difficulties in social interaction, along with other restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. Asperger's Syndrome my differ from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. However, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language may have been frequently reported. Asperger's Syndrome may begin in infancy or childhood, may have a steady course of decline relative to the age-matched cohort with impairments that may result from maturation-related changes in various systems. However, individuals with Asperger's Syndrome may have excellent basic auditory and visual perception despite impaired higher-order processing of emotional and social signals.
Williams Syndrome is a rare neurodevelopment disorder that may be caused by a deletion of about twenty-six genes from the long arm of chromosome seven. Williams Syndrome may be characterized by a distinctive elfin facial appearance, along with a low nasal bridge; an unusually cheerful demeanor and easier with strangers; mental retardation coupled with unusual language skills; a love for music; and cardiovascular problems, such as supravalvular aortic stenosis and transient hypercalcemia. Further, individuals with Williams Syndrome may have problems with visual processing, which may be related to difficulty in dealing with complex spatial relationships rather than to issues with depth perception.
In many neural dysfunctions the cognitive capabilities are primarily affected; however, vision is impaired to some degree. The prevalence of basic visual defects raises naturally the question of their impact on cognitive functions and suggests that some cognitive impairments result directly or indirectly from deficiencies at a perceptive level rather than from a core cognitive problem. Hence cognitive impairments and vision impairments can be linked.
Brain imaging techniques and brain-scanning devices have been widely used in investigating cerebral functions and neuro-chemical changes; however, they are of little use in quantifying deficits in visual functions and are burdensome and cost-prohibitive when used to regularly monitor the progress of neurodegenerative disease and mental disorders.
Other tools, such as behavioral assessments and cognitive tests, although cost effective, have drawbacks since they are only adequate for obtaining a qualitative assessment of the visual deficits. Such paper and scoring tests, when given as a sequence of tests, do not consider the results of the initial tests in subsequent tests.
Additionally, since cognitive and sensory impairments are not widely recognized as closely linked, sensory-cognitive testing is not conducted at the same medical visit. Thus, a need exists, therefore, for developing appropriate perceptual tests to quantify the impact of the neural diseases on the affected visual functions.
Further, although some consider behavioral analysis to not be quantifiable, many research studies indicate that functional impairment can indeed analyzed in a quantitative fashion. Thus, a further need exists for an improved system for quantitative assessment of functional impairment to treat subjects with cognitive, perceptual, neurological, visual, and/or attentional deficiencies.
Yet a further need exists to overcome the problem of identifying the early phases of the neural disease or disorder.
A further need exists to overcome the problem of monitoring neural disease progress.
Yet a further need exists for a system for quantitative assessment of functional impairment that has the ability to simplify clinical research on cognitive, perceptual, neurological, visual, and/or attentional deficiencies.
Still further improvement is needed in animal research evaluations wherein varying scene patterns are shown to animal subjects.
Yet a further need exists for laboratories of drug companies and pharmaceutical companies to research and develop treatments for neurological impairment testing of subjects.
Still further improvement is needed to identify meta-parameters that may cause functional impairment and methods to diagnose their exemplary diseases and disorders.
A further need exists to generate real-time scores and diagnosis based on quantitative assessment of functional impairment.
Still further improvement is needed in critical testing of memory, attention, emotional, and social cue analysis.
A need exists for a treatment of development processes that may cause functional impairment in subjects.
Yet a further need exists for maximizing stimulus response compatibility in assessment of functional impairment so as not to obscure aspects of sensory processing and motor control.
Still further improvement is needed in a functional impairment assessment tool that captures all aspects of sensory input, cognitive transformation, and motoric response.
Further, a need exists for the incorporation of artificial intelligence in assessment of functional impairment.
Finally, a need exists for dynamic testing in clinical research, wherein a system responds to the actions of a subject.